US President Donald Trump says ball in China's court on tariffs

DONALD Trump believes it is up to China to come to the negotiating table on trade, the White House said Tuesday, after the US president accused Beijing of reneging on a major Boeing deal.

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"The ball is in China's court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don't have to make a deal with them," said a statement from Trump read out by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

"There's no difference between China and any other country except they are much larger," she told a brief-ing.

Leavitt’s comments came after Trump said that China had "reneged" on a major deal with US aviation giant Boeing.

This followed a Bloomberg news report that Beijing ordered airlines not to take further deliveries of the company's jets.

China growth

Trump has slapped new tariffs on friend and foe since returning to the presidency this year, but has reserved his heaviest blows for China -- imposing additional 145 percent levies on many Chinese imports.

China on Wednesday said its economy grew a forecast-beating 5.4 percent in the first quarter as exporters rushed to get goods out of factory gates ahead of the US levies.

Senior official Sheng Laiyun from China's National Bureau of Statistics said that the US tariffs "will put certain pressures on our country's foreign trade and economy".